Educators are increasingly concerned with the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in student writing. Much of the concern focuses on the issue of students using ChatGPT to complete their work. I introduce the CUPID model for instructors to use when thinking about how to pedagogically handle ChatGPT. The CUPID model lays out five general approaches: Catch, Utilize, Prevent, Ignore, and Disincentivize. I suggest that instructors should especially consider using certain assignments that fall under the approach “Disincentivize”. Philosophy instructors in particular (...) should assign more low-stakes writing, such as journals and reflection pieces. The adoption of low-stakes writing assignments aims to discourage students from relying on AI while promoting clarity of thought and deeper engagement with philosophical ideas. (shrink)

This paper argues that an important type of experiment-target inference, extrapolating causal effects, requires models to be successful. Focusing on extrapolation in Evidence-Based Policy, it is ar...

I consider recent strategies proposed by econometricians for extrapolating causal effects from experimental to target populations. I argue that these strategies fall prey to the extrapolator’s circle: they require so much knowledge about the target population that the causal effects to be extrapolated can be identified from information about the target alone. I then consider comparative process tracing as a potential remedy. Although specifically designed to evade the extrapolator’s circle, I argue that CPT is unlikely to facilitate extrapolation in typical (...) econometrics and evidence-based policy applications. To argue this, I offer a distinction between two kinds of extrapolation, attributive and predictive, the latter being prevalent in econometrics and evidence-based policy. I argue that CPT is not helpful for predictive extrapolation when using the kinds of evidence that econometricians and evidence-based policy researchers prefer. I suggest that econometricians may need to consider qualitative evidence to overcome this problem. (shrink)

In Simulation and Similarity, Michael Weisberg offers a similarity-based account of the model–world relation, which is the relation in virtue of which successful models are successful. Weisberg’s main idea is that models are similar to targets in virtue of sharing features. An important concern about Weisberg’s account is that it remains silent on what it means for models and targets to share features, and consequently on how feature-sharing contributes to models’ epistemic success. I consider three potential ways of concretizing the (...) concept of shared features: as identical, quantitatively sufficiently close, and sufficiently similar features. I argue that each of these concretizations faces significant challenges, leaving unclear how Weisberg’s account substantially contributes to elucidating the relation in virtue of which successful models are successful. Against this background, I outline a pluralistic revision and argue that this revision may not only help Weisberg's account evade several of the problems that I raise, but also offers a novel perspective on the model–world relation more generally. 1Introduction 2Weisberg’s Feature-Sharing Account 3What Is a Shared Feature? 3.1Identity 3.2Sufficient closeness 3.3Sufficient similarity 4Turning Weisberg’s Account ‘Upside Down’ 5Conclusion. (shrink)

The central argument of this book is that the interrelated ideas of the educated person and a liberal education are in need of serious rethinking. The book contributes to this rethinking through an analysis of influential historical and contemporary treatments of liberal education, as well as scholarship in feminist theory and critical pedagogy. The book concludes by presenting a new ideal of the educated person and a reconceptualization of liberal education.

Extrapolating causal effects is becoming an increasingly important kind of inference in Evidence-Based Policy, development economics, and microeconometrics more generally. While several strategies have been proposed to aid with extrapolation, the existing methodological literature has left our understanding of what extrapolation consists of and what constitutes successful extrapolation underdeveloped. This paper addresses this lack in understanding by offering a novel account of successful extrapolation. Building on existing contributions pertaining to the challenges involved in extrapolation, this more nuanced and comprehensive account (...) seeks to provide tools that facilitate the scrutiny of specific extrapolative inferences and general strategies for extrapolation. Offering such resources is important especially in view of the increasing amounts of real-world decision-making in policy, development, and beyond that involve extrapolation. (shrink)

The language theory of Mikhail Bakhtin does not fall neatly under any single rubric - 'dialogism,' 'marxism,' 'prosaics,' 'authorship' - because the philosophic foundation of his writing rests ambivalently between phenomenology and Marxism. The theoretical tension of these positions creates philosophical impasses in Bakhtin's work, which have been neglected or ignored partly because these impasses are themselves mirrored by the problems of antifoundationalist and materialist tendencies in literary scholarship. In Mikhail Bakhtin: Between Phenomenology and Marxism Michael Bernard-Donals examines various incarnations (...) of phenomenological and materialist theory - including the work of Jauss, Fish, Rorty, Althusser, and Pecheux - and places them beside Bakhtin's work, providing a contextualised study of Bakhtin, a critique of the problems of contemporary critics, and an original contribution to literary theory. (shrink)

The prescription of practice guidelines for consent in neonatal care that are appropriate for all interventions faces substantial problems. Current practice varies widely. Consent in neonatal care is compromised by postnatal constraints on information sharing and decision-making. Empirical research shows marked individual and cultural variation in the degree to which parents want to contribute to decision-making on behalf of their infants. Conflict between the parents’ wishes and the infant’s best interests could arise if consent for a recommended intervention were refused, (...) and parental refusal of consent may have to be overridden. Consent to an appropriate package of care (such as special, intensive or palliative care) may be morally preferable to a universal requirement to seek consent for all individual interventions entailed by that package. (shrink)

Acceding to the demand that public policy should be based on “the best available evidence” can come at significant moral cost. Important policy questions cannot be addressed using “the best available evidence” as defined by the evidence-based policy paradigm; the paradigm can change the meaning of questions so that they can be addressed using the preferred kind of evidence; and important evidence that does not meet the standard defined by the paradigm can get ignored. We illustrate these problems in three (...) contexts of evidence-based policy. (shrink)

The Circumcision Controversy in Classical Reform in Historical Context Judith Bleich Toward the close of the nineteenth century, a gathering of rabbinic ...

Proponents of evidence-based policy (EBP) call for public policy to be informed by high-quality evidence from randomized controlled trials. This methodological preference aims to promote several epistemic values, e.g. rigor, unbiasedness, precision, and the ability to obtain causal conclusions. I argue that there is a trade-off between these epistemic values and several non-epistemic, moral and political values. This is because the evidence afforded by preferred EBP methods is differentially useful for pursuing different moral and political values. I expand on how (...) this challenges ideals of value-freedom and -neutrality in EBP, and offer suggestions for how EBP methodology might be revised. (shrink)

Scientific models can be performative: they can causally affect the phenomena they are intended to represent. The existing literature offers two responses. The appraisal view emphasizes that performativity can sometimes be a good-making model attribute, e.g., when predictions steer the public’s behavior in desirable ways. The mitigation view seeks to endogenize agents’ behavioral response to model-issued forecasts to get rid of performativity instead. This paper argues that neither approach is fully compelling: the appraisal view encounters severe concerns about moral values (...) illegitimately encroaching on how modelers construct and use models, while the mitigation view fails to acknowledge that endogenization is itself a choice that involves substantive value-judgments relating to the desirability of certain social outcomes. (shrink)

Public policymakers and institutional decision-makers routinely face questions about whether interventions “work”: does universal basic income improve people’s welfare and stimulate entrepreneurial activity? Do gated alleyways reduce burglaries or merely shift the crime burden to neighbouring communities? What is the most cost-effective way to improve students’ reading abilities? These are empirical questions that seem best answered by looking at the world, rather than trusting speculations about what will be effective. Evidence-based policy (EBP) is a movement that concretizes this intuition. It (...) maintains that policy should be based on evidence of “what works.” Not any evidence will do, however. Following on the heels of its intellectual progenitor, evidence-based medicine (EBM), EBP insists on the use of high-quality evidence produced in accordance with rigorous methodological standards. Though intuitively compelling, EBP has attracted significant criticism from methodologists, political scientists, and philosophers. This chapter provides a critical overview of EBP through a philosophical lens, reviewing and discussing some of the most pressing challenges that EBP faces and outlining some proposals for improving it. I first provide a brief overview of EBP and distinguish a broader and narrower understanding of it. I then review existing lines of criticism of EBP, two of which are considered in detail. The first elaborates how EBP struggles with extrapolation, that is, the use of evidence from study populations to make inferences about the effects of policies on novel target populations. The second maintains that EBP’s methodological tenets are deeply entwined with moral and political values, which can threaten EBP’s promise to promote objectivity in policymaking. Finally, I make some proposals for how EBP could be improved going forward. (shrink)

This introduction to morality proposes that morality is looked at in five different ways: morality as law, morality as inner conviction, morality as personal growth, morality as love and morality as social transformation. No one of these ways is sufficient in itself to deal with the complex moral questions of today, but each is enriched by the others.

The recent wave of generative AI (GAI) systems like Stable Diffusion that can produce images from human prompts raises controversial issues about creatorship, originality, creativity and copyright. This paper focuses on creatorship: who creates and should be credited with the outputs made with the help of GAI? Existing views on creatorship are mixed: some insist that GAI systems are mere tools, and human prompters are creators proper; others are more open to acknowledging more significant roles for GAI, but most conceive (...) of creatorship in an all-or-nothing fashion. We develop a novel view, called CCC (collective-centered creation), that improves on these existing positions. On CCC, GAI outputs are created by collectives in the first instance. Claims to creatorship come in degrees and depend on the nature and significance of individual contributions made by the various agents and entities involved, including users, GAI systems, developers, producers of training data and others. Importantly, CCC maintains that GAI systems can sometimes be part of a co-creating collective. We detail how CCC can advance existing debates and resolve controversies around creatorship involving GAI. (shrink)

Explores a provocative alternative vision of education based on an analysis of the feminist educational thought of Jane Roland Martin. Emergent thinking on gender, knowledge, and caring is highlighted, with particular attention to gender-sensitive education and cultural wealth and the implications they hold for the school curriculum.

Referring to the phenomenon of structural injustice resulting from unintended consequences of the combination of the actions of many people, Iris Marion Young claims for a new understanding of responsibility. She proposes what she calls a social connection model of responsibility which assigns responsibility to individuals also for participating in ongoing structural and social processes. To remedy structural injustice Young claims for collective action of various actors in society and assigns different degrees of responsibility depending on the agent’s position within (...) the structural process. However, although Young mentions power, privilege, interest, and collective ability as parameters influencing the degree of an actor’s responsibility to contribute to structural change she does not elaborate which responsibilities concern which groups in society. As we will outline in our contribution, we hold the tenet of subsidiarity to be a useful supplement to the conception of Iris Marion Young which would allow for assigning such responsibilities to different layers in society. However, since the tenet of subsidiarity is only a supple principle which does not distinguish between different kinds of duties, we propose to enrich the tenet of subsidiarity by the Kantian conception of perfect and imperfect duties. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Pandemics and plagues function rhetorically, by doing violence to the structures of discourse, sociality, hospitality, and mutual engagement that characterize ethical human interaction. They infect us, as rhetorical subjects, and reorient our capacity for engagement. The coronavirus's “novelty” renders it uncertain as to how long it will last or who will be infected next; the near-uniform response to it has been a forced distance of ourselves from others and a displacement from our itineraries and our locations. Through COVID-19 we (...) are learning that pandemic does violence to our sense of place, to how we think of respite, and has highlighted our sense of vulnerability in the midst of others. (shrink)

Die moderne Ökonomik versteht sich als wertfreie Wissenschaft, die sich primär mit der Entwicklung von Märkten beschäftigt. Dieses Verständnis reicht bis zur antiken Philosophie zurück. An ausgewählten Autoren und zentralen Theorien zeigt der Autor die historische Entwicklung der gesellschaftlichen Bedeutung ökonomischer Fragestellungen sowie die theoriegeschichtliche Genese der Ökonomik als eigenständige Wissenschaft auf. Der Band eignet sich somit hervorragend zur Einführung und Vertiefung.

Travel provides countless opportunities for wonder. The breadth of human experience enabled by traversing new territory includes curiosity, excitement, and surprise. However, achieving this breadth may well be better left unfulfilled. Gulliver’s interactions with the King of Brobdingnag in Book II of Gulliver’s Travels (1726) raise interesting questions regarding travel and its effects on the traveller. This essay argues that Gulliver’s Travels draws upon Locke’s insights into travel as an endeavour with the potential to be didactic, ultimately presenting a case (...) against the universal benefit of embarking on a voyage. Swift’s text offers little hope for the existence of the type of traveller who would be improved rather than corrupted by the experience, which suggests that wonders of travel ought to be avoided. This generates a counter-Enlightenment riposte to liberal assumptions concerning the possibility and likelihood of individual edification through pursuing the wonders of travel. (shrink)

Travel provides countless opportunities for wonder. The breadth of human experience enabled by traversing new territory includes curiosity, excitement, and surprise. However, achieving this breadth may well be better left unfulfilled. Gulliver’s interactions with the King of Brobdingnag in Book II of Gulliver’s Travels (1726) raise interesting questions regarding travel and its effects on the traveller. This essay argues that Gulliver’s Travels draws upon Locke’s insights into travel as an endeavour with the potential to be didactic, ultimately presenting a case (...) against the universal benefit of embarking on a voyage. Swift’s text offers little hope for the existence of the type of traveller who would be improved rather than corrupted by the experience, which suggests that wonders of travel ought to be avoided. This generates a counter-Enlightenment riposte to liberal assumptions concerning the possibility and likelihood of individual edification through pursuing the wonders of travel. (shrink)

For the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas, it is the presence of the other that obliges the human to speak. What makes the subject a subject is not only the other’s presence but the compulsion to speak, and that compulsion marks the subject as displaced, called into question. The other—the neighbor, the stranger—makes us responsible and marks the subject as always necessarily in relation, a relation that troubles the subject because while we are compelled to respond, that response inevitably fails to contain, (...) to name, that relation. In Levinas’s formulation, the altogether other—the divine—presents us with the paradigmatic case in which the subject is compelled or called by that which exceeds our capacity to understand .. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Academic freedom is typically understood as a means of protecting faculty rights against the violence—physical or intellectual—of the state or of the institution’s administration. This article argues that academic freedom may be seen as a form of violence, insofar as it is potentially threatening to the methodological and institutional stasis of colleges and universities.

Based on the extended conceptualization of corporate citizenship, as provided by Matten and Crane :166–179, 2005), this paper examines the new role of corporations in society. Taking the ideas of Matten and Crane one step further, we argue that the status of corporations as citizens is not solely defined by their factual engagement in the provision of citizenship rights to others. By analysing political and sociological citizenship theories, we show that such engagement is more adequately explained by a change in (...) the self-conception of corporate citizens from corporate bourgeois to corporate citoyens. While the corporate bourgeois acts primarily for private business purposes, the corporate citoyen engages in society, performing civil and political rights and duties. As an intermediate actor in society, shaped by the principle of subsidiary task-sharing, the corporate citoyen undertakes co-responsibility for social and civic affairs and actively collaborates with fellow citizens below, beside and beyond governmental regulation. (shrink)

Through extensive training, experts acquire specialized knowledge and abilities. In this paper, I argue that experts also acquire specialized visual experiences. Specifically, I articulate and defend the account that experts enjoy visual experiences that represent gestalt properties through perceptual learning. I survey an array of empirical studies on face perception and perceptual expertise that support this account. I also look at studies on perceptual adaptation that some might argue present a problem for my account. I show how the data are (...) subject to an interpretation that is friendly to it. Last, I address two theoretical objections to the claim that visual experiences represent gestalt properties. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Der Islam Jahrgang: 93 Heft: 2 Seiten: 609-614.

ABSTRACT The tension between freedom of speech and academic freedom results from the contradiction between democracy and expertise, resulting in a rhetorical “gray zone” that stymies faculty appeals to due process and constitutional protection. It’s not so much that certain “uncivil” words and utterances cannot be said in this gray zone; it’s that such words, when said, require one’s ejection from the demos. In an examination of the case of Steven Salaita, I’ll show how the tyranny of the demos, in (...) the guise of “civility,” “community standards,” or “institutional values,” trumps academic freedom, and how the commonplace of democracy—understood as public opinion—can and does compel faculty silence. (shrink)

Levinas proposed a "politics of suffering" that requires all political actors to be willing to engage in the quotidian world not according to the "natural law" but according to those "rules" that make themselves evident in that engagement itself. Israel, the one place such a politics might be lived, appeared to be a space occupied by a citizenry - after 1948, a large number of whom survived the Holocaust- who understood vulnerability in its most radical form. This essay examines the (...) extent to which Levinas's "political thought" works and how such a politics has fared in the contemporary Middle East. (shrink)

In the summer of 2015 the governor of Wisconsin signed an omnibus budget bill that, among other things, removed tenure from state statute—forcing the Board of Regents to rewrite it into board policy documents—and attempted to undermine aspects of shared governance that had been part of life at the university since the founding of the system in the early 1970s. Two years later, the Wisconsin Assembly passed a bill that directed the university to "strive to remain neutral on the public (...) policy controversies of the day". These actions and others like them in Wisconsin are part of a wider trend for states, particularly in those dominated by conservative legislatures and governors, to... (shrink)